Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Piano Trio in G Major, K.564 for Piano, Violin and Cello: Mozart (1756-1791) learned to play the keyboard at age 3, started composing at age 5, and learned the violin at age 6 on a tour during which he and his child-prodigy sister performed all over Europe. He was “history’s first important professional ‘freelance’ musician” [David Dubal]. “There was literally nothing in music he could not do better than anybody else” [Harold Schonberg]. Composed in 1788, this work reflects three trends. First, the piano trio was evolving, mainly in the hands of the 29 piano trios composed by Franz Josef Haydn, but also the six piano trios composed by Mozart, and those works were evolving into a more even-handed division of sound among the instruments of the trio. Second, technical improvements were being made to the pianoforte, such that the piano had begun to replace the harpsichord as the favored keyboard instrument in orchestral and ensemble music. Third, while Mozart was struggling financially, he was also composing some of his most famous mature works – his last three symphonies and his later piano concertos. The K.564 trio may have started as a piano sonata and evolved into a trio, since the autograph score shows the piano part in the hand of a copyist and the violin and cello parts in Mozart’s own hand. Movement I is in the standard sonata and allegro form. Movement II are a theme and variations. And Movement III is a rondo. This was the last piano trio that Mozart composed before his death in 1791.

Felix Mendelssohn, Piano Trio No. 1 in D Minor, op. 49 for Piano, Violin and Cello: Mendelssohn (1809-1847) was a German Romantic musician of many talents. He sang; played the violin, piano and organ; conducted; and composed. He came from a wealthy German family and was educated privately. By age 12, he was an experienced composer. From 1833-35 he was the music director in Dusseldorf. In 1835 he became the music director in Leipzig, where he conducted the Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra. His compositional style was conservative by Romantic standards, employing classical forms and emphasizing balance, proportionality and craftsmanship. Mendelssohn’s D Minor trio is one of his best and most popular works, “a lively, melodic piece that is satisfying to perform” [John Palmer]. It was this work that prompted Robert Schumann, as a music critic, to write that “Mendelssohn is the Mozart of the nineteenth century, the most illuminating of musicians.” This trio, Schumann continued, serves “as evidence of its creator’s artistic power, which now appears to be near in full bloom.” Completed in 1839, the work premiered in 1840 with Mendelssohn at the keyboard. After its initial performances, Mendelssohn revised the piano part “to incorporate certain new keyboard tricks associated with Chopin and Liszt” [James Keller]. This charming trio will offer listeners “abundant, arching melodies of Italianate bel canto inspiration” [id.].

Johannes Brahms, Horn Trio in E-Flat Major, op. 40 for Horn, Violin and Piano: Some music scholars view Brahms (1833-1897) as the quintessential master of Romantic chamber music. He came on the musical scene as a pianist and a composer of piano music. In October 1853, as a 20-year-old, he caught the attention of Robert and Clara Schumann. Four months later, Robert attempted suicide and committed himself to an asylum, where he died two years later. He maintained a lifelong friendship with Clara until her death, less than a year before his own. In 1863 at age 30, Brahms moved to Vienna, where he lived the rest of his life. Brahms was a bundle of contradictions – he could be kind and abrupt; as a friend, he could be thoughtful and thoughtlessly ill-tempered. After he became famous (and wealthy), he championed the careers of younger composers, including Dvořák. Brahms’ musical style fused classical forms with Romantic warmth. “Brahms was the classicist who dealt with abstract forms and never wrote a note of program music” [Schonberg]. Brahms Horn Trio departs from the norm, not only in replacing the cello with a horn, but also by abandoning the typical classical sonata movements in which trios were written. Brahms’ father was a professional hornist, an instrument always associated with hunting and nature, two principal themes in the Romantic era. In addition, Brahms himself played the horn well enough to sit first chair in a German orchestra in his 20’s, so writing a trio to feature this instrument reflected a certain nostalgia on Brahms’ part. The work opens not with an Allegro, but with an Andante. The second movement is a rousing hunting song, full of energy and good spirits” [Steven Coburn], which quotes a Länder or Austrian folk dance. Movement III is special and deeply personal. Brahms’ mother had died only three months before Brahms composed this work. The third movement quotes a German folk song, “In der Weiden steht ein Haus” (“In the meadow stands a house”), which he had learned from his mother. One critic called this movement “an elegy in her memory” [id.]. The fourth movement is “light and rollicking.” James Keller has written that, in this Trio, “Brahms requires the instrument to summon up both its lyrical and its dramatic sides, the former principally in the first and third movements, the latter in the other two.”

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